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Do Supports Deserve More Gold And Experience?

ArnoldSchwarzens··50 votes·3,905 views

Lately I've been autofilled to support several times. I wasn't prepared for it but at the same time I kinda felt excited about it. I haven't played anything but jungle, top and about 4 mid games ever since Dynamic Que came out so experiencing this new role was a lot of fun. Then I made myself Rune Pages and played pre games with my brother to prepare better for the next time I get support as autofill.

But even though I had a blast playing support, I couldn't help feeling weak. I didn't get as much gold as my adc because obviously he gets the farm, and roaming when my adc wasn't there because he wanted to have solo exp made me really underleveled. I played Alistar most of these games and I remember playing Ali top not too long ago when Sunfire+Frostborn Gauntlet was overpowered. Compared to Ali top, Ali support felt waaaay weaker and I felt like I couldn't have made as much impact as I wanted to have.

I don't know a lot about the support role and I'm still inexperienced in supporting. But wouldn't it hurt to give supports better ways to keep up with their teammates when it comes to EXP and gold? Maybe that would make them overpowered, I don't know, I would need some support main's opinion on this first. Thoughts?

127 Comments

Duke Anax29 votes

Gold isn't that much of a problem as Tank and utility items are decendly cheap.

But the amount of XP you loose for proper warding is annoying.

RainbowIcee3 votes

I mostly play support and I fully support this, though in the end i'm not sure how i honestly feel because i do tend to roam and counter jungle a lot. If i had that extra exp or even gold i'd do it more often. And when I'm jungle it's my biggest fear that the enemy support walks in to fuck with me and i have to leave jungle camps behind to not die.

AMYS GRAVE1 votes

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Inspiration_(Season_Four_Mastery)

oh how we miss you S4

oSEXYPLATYPUSo18 votes

you are correct... they dont get as much gold and experience and are typically under leveled in the game... hence why utility supports who have heals/shields/ cc are ideally best cuz they can do that with lack of damage based on kit.

i have mained support since s3 and i have always ran and still run gold per 10 runes on both my support rune pages to try to help my gold income to get my core items faster.

part of that is the reason on team comps that your only tank or engage is the support fails alot cuz they just dont get the same gold resources to get to get that build fully to be effective at it.

riot has tried to make changes to help supports along but it seems the have gave more help to jungle over gold and experience of late

i also think there needs to be better itemization for supports as well.

and i like your name i think its funny fyi

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Mimy2 votes

I run gp10 quints..

Scaling cdr blues Mana regen yellows

Reds varry... should use magic pen or something..

What do you suggest?

I play alot of sona , soraka, and dabbling with nunu support... it works pretty well with adcs that a scale well with attack speed.. that w buff OP OP

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

http://imgur.com/TEoEudC

http://imgur.com/YbKludt

are the two pages i run

FantasySniper1 votes

Ew. Mp5 glyphs are practically worthless. And why have 7.5% CDR when you have 3 scaling and reach an even 10%? Do you not build any CDR on your tanks?

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

{quoted}

Ew. Mp5 glyphs are practically worthless. And why have 7.5% CDR when you have 3 scaling and reach an even 10%? Do you not build any CDR on your tanks?

the mp5 i assume is mana per 5 ? and i have just enough to help with a lil extra sustain... and i get cdr on my tanks and typically the flat early cdr with item 3301 gives me 13% cdr lvl 1 is plenty and with my normal builds i max out cdr as it is

FantasySniper1 votes

An Mp5 glyph is less than 1/8th of a Faerie Charm on mage supports, and that value declines even further with level. Even if you're to give it the value of flat Mp5 instead of comparing it to the percentage, that's still only 20g versus the 24g of MR or the 26g of AP. To put this into perspective: Mp5 seals and Armour glyphs is barely any different in gold value from Armour seals and Mp5 Glyphs. If you're going to max out beyond the CDR cap (especially if your 4th or 5th item is the one that hits the cap), you probably shouldn't have any in your runes. This is acceptable if you're playing a champion that needs maximum up-time like Blitz or Thresh, but otherwise you won't have the mana to support spam early in the first place.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

but for those 3 lil runes i run with my item 3303 regen of mana plus the mastery for regen i have plenty mana to spam

as far as my tank supports i have the 0-12-18 set up with the mana regen mastery... and i typically will get a item 3301 to help with regen so the 13% cdr at lvl one makes it more opportunity to land a hook/grab. engage due to the reduced cd on that kind of ability when people expect it to be longer and they dont pay attention and we know they dont... they expect it to still be on cd when its not and boom there it is

think outside the box man

FantasySniper1 votes

[{quoted}](name=MrFawknSunshine ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uPVTKpIN,comment-id=0001000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-09-27T01:50:36.516+0000)

but for those 3 lil runes i run with my item 3303 regen of mana plus the mastery for regen i have plenty mana to spam

Those lil 3 runes are barely contributing 12 mana per minute. You'd need to wait 5 minutes to cast one more spell that costs 60 mana. And most supports' spells cost more than 60 mana. I repeat: You're getting less than one spell every 5 minutes out of 12 mana per minute.

13% cdr at lvl one makes it more opportunity to land a hook/grab.

think outside the box man

I explicitly mentioned Blitz and Thresh as two of the very few exceptions. I already did that thinking.

Boulderox1 votes

Trouble being too, support items that make gold can never truly be good, as we saw with frost queens claim in the past becoming a mid laner first item due to how much ap, utility and gold you got from a cheap item. It sucks when an item is perfect for x role but is abusable by 1 or more champions that force it to be lack luster

oSEXYPLATYPUSo4 votes

ok true... however there can be better items for supports... when you legit lose half your item slots having to be a support

( having to have item 2049 item 3069 any gold income item and item 2043 and you dont get the same experience and level the same as other roles you are at a disadvantage

Boulderox1 votes

[{quoted}](name=MrFawknSunshine ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uPVTKpIN,comment-id=000100010000,timestamp=2016-09-25T15:57:28.753+0000)

ok true... however there can be better items for supports... when you legit lose have your item slots having to be a support

( having to have item 2049 item 3069 any gold income item and item 2043 and you dont get the same experience and level the same as other roles you are at a disadvantage

And that is the odd thing, as the support/gold item mix, it seems that item 2301 item 2302 aren't very popular imo. item 3092 is best in most cases than the other. Oritem 3401 is more useful than item 2303 from experience.

I feel if supports had a ward slot, it could fix some problems with supports, add a dedicated slot for a pink ward. But that could just be. A selfish thing I believe.

Tentacle Advisor4 votes

I honestly believe that the "add a dedicated slot for a pink ward" should be given to everyone. The fact that you can no longer buy wards once you're at full build feels like more of a handicap than anything. Especially if you truly need the vision wards for Kha'Zix, Rengar, Evelyn and Shaco. And, hell, they're even great for fighting Vayne and Twitch since they lose their ability to go invisible during fights.

Seriously, we should be allowed to buy wards, even at full build. I had this on-going thought in my head (to ease the pain of people complaining to me, a support main, about buying wards) that people used 'full build' as their excuse because they knew that once they had it, no one could complain to them about not buying wards, because they couldn't. And I truly believe that this is an actual issue that no one has actually brought up with Riot just yet.

Project Zed3 votes

But the problem with giving everyone a pink slot is that now all those invisible chaps become useless as now they have no surprise in their kit. One one person from the enemy team has to drop a pink ward (in this case is no big deal cause then you should always have one out and one in your inventory) to completely remove them from a team fight now you are fighting 4v5 every time. Now don't get me wrong I would LOVE to have a slot like that. The problem lies with how would you make it fair.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

Well the current ability to get unnoticed to the backline and unleash hell on them isn't fair either is it? And i think people don't have much trouble with kha stealth or wukong stealth but perma stealths like eve and twitch are toxic af to play against.

Tentacle Advisor2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Project Zed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=uPVTKpIN,comment-id=000100010000000000000000,timestamp=2016-09-26T00:20:28.895+0000)

But the problem with giving everyone a pink slot is that now all those invisible chaps become useless as now they have no surprise in their kit. One one person from the enemy team has to drop a pink ward (in this case is no big deal cause then you should always have one out and one in your inventory) to completely remove them from a team fight now you are fighting 4v5 every time. Now don't get me wrong I would LOVE to have a slot like that. The problem lies with how would you make it fair.

That's a good point, but with that said, I feel that stealth itself is unfair. If having the ability to counter their stealth would make the champs obsolete, that simply shows that there's something wrong with stealth in general, to begin with, if you ask me.

{quoted}

Well the current ability to get unnoticed to the backline and unleash hell on them isn't fair either is it? And i think people don't have much trouble with kha stealth or wukong stealth but perma stealths like eve and twitch are toxic af to play against.

Precisely! Now Kha'Zix, I can deal with. Rengar is a little harder but manageable. Eve and Twitch, however, are more of an issue because they have either perma-stealth or long-as-hell stealth (in Twitch's case). It's one thing to be able to manage Rengar and Kha by warding pathways to their jungle and stuff, so you can see them before they show up.

This can be done to Eve as well, except for the fact that Eve, herself, is warned about the Vision Wards by way of her passive's "you're too close, Evelyn" exclamation mechanic. Twitch can practically walk from the entrance of his base, all the way down to the lane. And, unlike Eve, Twitch doesn't give himself away with an "you're too close" exclamation mechanic. He can literally sit right next you and you wouldn't even know.

I'm not sayin' we should remove stealth altogether, because honestly, I enjoy the idea of it. However, I do feel that there needs to be more viable ways to deal with stealth than just simply placing random Vision wards everywhere.

elon wątroba1 votes

Ehh, season 2 gold generators abused by top laners.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

Heart of Gold, you will be missed.

Anu3isII2 votes

Heart of Gold*

BLACK REALM GOD1 votes

bro. item 3089 Sona = free win.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votes

yea i can win on sona with out building troll

Hawkefire1 votes

In all honesty, drop the gp10 runes, they were nerfed a while back and now the amount of time for them to generate enough gold to equal a longsword is something around 15-20 min if I'm remembering the math correctly. It is far more valuable to have the early game stats like some extra armor, or my personal favorite, extra movement speed (helps so much for roaming, warding, and getting in position)

oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votes

{quoted}

In all honesty, drop the gp10 runes, they were nerfed a while back and now the amount of time for them to generate enough gold to equal a longsword is something around 15-20 min if I'm remembering the math correctly. It is far more valuable to have the early game stats like some extra armor, or my personal favorite, extra movement speed (helps so much for roaming, warding, and getting in position)

10 extra armor or extra ap isnt going to do much when i get more gold then the other support and have my ss sooner or my gold item completed faster by using my gold per ten runes and late game that lil bit extra base stats arent going to mean a lot as support

Hawkefire1 votes

You would honestly be surprised.

Consider that GP10 runes mean literally nothing for the earlygame (which is generally where runes matter most), and after running the math: it takes 20 minutes, yes 20 minutes to afford a single longsword. In other words, the impact it grants is completely negligible and does virtually nothing to help the gold starved support class.

GP10 runes are supposed to be a tool to enhance your mid-late game (because it should help you reach it sooner). Fact is, it doesn't really do much in that department, and it actually might hurt your moreso, especially if your opponent is using runes that enhance their earlygame, and you would be much better off going with some form of scaling defense quint if your goal is to improve your mid-lategame.

Also taking that little bit of extra AP, on a class that is typically starved for gold can be extremely helpful, because what little AP you do get is very important to you (same goes for pretty much any stat that a support wants).

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

ok so random question were it seems most think gold income on supports arent really the down fall but more so experience and lvls .. what if you were to run + experience quints on supports? so you gain more experience ? the problem is they cap at lvl 18 cuz you cant lvl any more... any thoughts?

Hawkefire1 votes

Gold income on a support seems mostly tied to whatever their gold income item is and from earning assists. Oh and that gold get mastery that gives you some cash whenever an enemy minion dies nearby, that one actually does make a noticeable impact to your gold gen. Exp quints would be an incredibly dangerous thing to introduce and would either be completely useless and do basically nothing or grossly powerful and taken by nearly any champion.

Exp is a bit of a different beast than gold, because levels are extremely tied into power spikes, and anything that let's you get to your power spike faster is generally going to be the best thing to get.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo1 votes

so would you consider running 3 exp quints as a viable option compared to ap quints or def stat quints like hp or armor?

chipndip114 votes

Supports don't need more gold

Supports need more items.

Seeing how the role is way more under budgeted, the game needs items tailored to their income that pack different support-style passives and actives. You can't expect supports to be much of anything when they have to buy a bunch of 2.9k - 3.2k gold items once they're done buying cdr. We need more items in the support budget range to flesh out the role with, not more gold. If we give supports more gold, you're gonna see them picking up more mid laner items. Instead of pushing them closer to the goal post, give them their own goal post that's closer to them.

YET EVERY TIME I SAY THIS I GET DOWNVOTED.

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

YambrinZ6 votes

You cant have that. Solo laners will just abuse it. The last thing I want is a Lissandra withmax cdr 10 minutes into the game nonstop shoving me under turret. The real problem is that support mains arent the ones crying about any of this. Its the "forced to support" people who just want to buy deathcaps as Lux support.

chipndip15 votes

It's not like mid laners find success building Athene's or Ardent Censor. If it's not strong enough for a mid laner to just outright kill someone with or replace that kill pressure with something SUPER useful (like an insane slow or 150% mana regen), they won't buy it. Plain and simple.

Example: item 3092 was hella broken and everyone bought it, right? How did Riot nerf it? They nerfed its mana regen and slowing active. They didn't have to touch the cdr or the damage because mid laners don't want the item for that anyway. Apply this logic to other possible support items...then make more support items.

The Last Ballad1 votes

Because a mid laner has such a good use out of item 3504 item 3174 item 3060 item 3114 item 3190 item 3222 and other such items.

Another way to gate the power of such items would to require a item 2049 or one of the items it builds into to be in the inventory for it to give its stats/active. Not only would it allow item 3092 to be buffed, but it would remind the supports that somehow think they can keep up adequate vision without it(they can't) that they need it. Now if only they would use it...(one game, I decided to do adc instead of support, and I ended up warding more with my item 3363 then the sona did with her item 2301... AND MINE HAS A 90+ SECOND COOLDOWN)

Maximum Morde7 votes

I think support sshould be strongest class in the game. they should be able to 1v4 everyone on enemyt eam except for enemy support, that swhy you need the rest of yoru team

SSShutTheDuckUp3 votes

Zyra I actually can do that

RainbowIcee1 votes

Zyra is not as easy to pick up as people that play her make it seem apparently. I saw some dude play zyra that just threw her ult and walked away expecting to hit anyone. Omg dude don't play a champ you're not familiar with just because she's popular. And don't even let me get started on all the yasuo's out there that think they're hot shit and always feed mid.

The Last Ballad1 votes

I gave up on one for all after I managed to get my team to do Zyra, and THEY WERE POKING WITH THEIR E AND PLACING PLANTS AT THEIR FEET! We were against Darius. One slipup, and he could wreck us, but zyra can keep him a bay decently... UNLESS THE TWO AT TOP AND MID FEED THEM!

morris11 votes

Bard can chunk every squishy. Sure, his sustained damage isn't that great, but seeing someone flash away from me because my Q auto thunderlord's did half of their health is very funny.

SSShutTheDuckUp1 votes

Annie Lux Sona can do it as well. However none of them have the pure brute force (aoe CC, aoe burst, DPS) of Zyra . If somehow you face a team, stupid enough to stay at one place and you land a 4 man E, 4 man Q, 4 man R with 2-3 flowers around you can deal like half (or more if you are fed enough) of the enemy team combined health while at the same time CC-ing them for almost 3 seconds. Few other champions in the game can do that

TerranHybrid7 votes

As a Support Main, I can tell you that gold is rarely my problem. I can get my first two items done at the same pace as my carry in most games. The problem is that, as a support, your first three items are all, always designed to help out everyone else and not yourself. As stated before, you're building utility, not killing power.

It's experience that suffers. Slip up even once and you find yourself two levels behind everyone but the other teams Support and useless in almost any combat situation without assistance. But the role is what it is. It's not your job to carry the game. It's your job to ensure that your carry gets what they need to do that.

crippler384 votes

here's the problem with that, and I'm assuming this was said somewhere else in this thread but I'm a jerk and want to say it too.

If they increase the gold and exp gain of supports, the reason you don't usually see a second carry in the support role (the lack of those two things) will vanish and we'll see nonsense like karthus support or other nonsense that only works when you get ahead. The difference being it'll be harder to shut those down and you can have a karthus support hit six earlier then ult or a soraka support hit six earlier.

I know I might be confusing to read from but let me try to put it in simpler terms, they buff exp and gold, it makes it so that people won't play support to support they'll play support to be the second carry. In all likelyhood.

The Loveless5 votes

Duo Lane Karthus actually sounds like fun

:-/

The Last Ballad2 votes

we'll see nonsense like karthus support

Wait, you haven't already seen that?

crippler381 votes

I want to try it more I think the last time I played it was like the very very end of season 3 and the start of season 4 or something, either that or I'm insane.

But I'm a very sensitive person who does poorly and loses lane as olaf to a yasuo (went mid lane to counter him but ended up tanking a ton of tower shots due to being a bronze and not knowing the tower's range, then getting ganked by jax constantly since I'm an idiot and always push.

EDIT: The malz somehow convinced at least 2 other people to report me for being terrible at the game, honestly I suuuuuuck soooooo muuuuuuch, but oh well nbd. Maybe next time I can convince my friend to adc so I don't get shouted at

The Loveless4 votes

You're kind of new to the role. Supporting right now is fine. I'm often only 1 level down from my adc, if at all. As for items, you just need to prepare yourself based on what the enemy is building. If you need to tank, grab something with hp. If you can safely do your magic from the back, grab CDR/mana

DarkRitual2 votes

The supports core items are all fairly low costed as well, when compared to core items of other roles. Keeping on top of the gold gen item (for Relic Shield and Spelltheif's) is also very important. Bandit triggers are another factor for ranged supports. It's nearly impossible to keep on top of it, but it's useful to remember it's there.

RisenDarkKnight4 votes

I don't think support should have more gold, I main support and I usually have more gold than at least one person who actually was in a farming role in the game (usually whichever person lost lane hardest). Support items are usually relatively cheap, so I often reach full build before carries even if they do have way more gold than me.

That said support definitely need more XP. It feels bad to pretty much always be the lowest level in the game. Support are supposed to sacrfice some of their gold income to help their team/adc, but they aren't supposed to be comically underleveled IMO. It sucks when the enemy top/mid have like 3-4 levels on you and can just one shot you from superior base damages and you lack of hp. Obviously supports shouldn't have more XP than solo laners (otherwise everyone would just run 2-1-2 comps with no jungler), but they should be able to have some way to catchup to their adc in XP if they fall behind, like that mastery from season 5 where you got XP every 10 seconds if you were near a higher lvl allied champion. I would bring that mastery back except make it twice or three times as strong.

TL, DR: Support have enough gold IMO, but should get more comeback XP.

Mimy2 votes

Honestly as a support I feel we make just enough to get by...

Honestly any more and other roles will start using our items.. there no need to buff support items.

Honestly I would enjoy a warding buff.. as a bronze I can't seem to ward enough. Sometimes I wish ruby sight stone raised the warding limit by 1 ward.

I wish I could build vision as an adc But I guess I'm greatful for a trinket.

Experiance is something different. We could do with that mastery that allowed us experiance by a higher level team member.

oSEXYPLATYPUSo2 votes

i made a comment on a thread a while ago about allowing ruby sightstone to allow you as a support to be able to place two pink wards on the map at the same time... or maybe allow you to upgrade your ruby sightstone and put it as your #4 inventory slot ( currently for trinkets) that way you can have a full 6 slots for items outside of sight stone

Mimy3 votes

That and if they give us the experiance near a higher team member mastery back we would be pretty good...

I would be happy as a support main..

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